
Qass. 
Book. 



(Sod fttii i.t)ovc atl Hafioiial Calamities. 



A SERMON . 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 



A r E 1 L 2 3, 1865. 



By a. D. GILLETTE, D_^D., 

PASTOE OF XUE riKST BAPTIST CHUKCH, WASHXSGTOX, II 



WASHINGTON, D. C: 

McGILL & WITHEROW, PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERji 

1865. 



«5o(l ^«» giilcivf all iJationat C'alainitiw. 



A SERMON 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 



A P lU L 2 3, 1865 



By a. D. GILLETTE, D. D., 

PASTOR OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



/ WASHINGTON, D. C: 

McGILL & WITUEROW, PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS. 

1865. 







'.r4 



Washingtox, D. C, Ajn-il 24, 1865. 
Rev. a. D. Gillettk, D. D., 

Pastor First Baptist Cliurch: 
The undersigned having listened to your discourse delivered on Sunday 
evening, April 23, in commemoration of the assassination of the late 
President of the United States, and deeming the moral and religious 
lessons it inculcates, as well as its tribute to the memory of one occupy- 
ing so important a position, to be specially instructive and timely, re- 
spectfully request a copy of the same for publication. 

R. J. POWELL. 

L. C. BALL. 

EDWARD YOUNG. 

JNO. W. CLARKE. 

JNO. C. SHAFER. 

C. C. WESTON. 

J. C. LEWIS. 

J. W. VANDERFOEL. 

W. J. RHEES. 

J. G. JUDD. 

G. W. SAMSON. 



Washington, D. C, May 1, 1865. 
De. R. J. Powell, Hon. L. C. Ball, and others : 

Gentlemen: I duly appreciate the honor done me by your request. 
The sermon was prepared and preached with a view to usefulness. If in 
your judgment that end will be promoted by the issue of the discourse 
in printed form, it is with gratitude and hope committed to your care. 

Yours, in the Gospel, 

A. D. GILLETTE. 



SERMON. 



In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a 
throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. — Isaiah vi, 1. 

When a little babe dies, all fathers and mothers weep 
■with the sorrowing parents, and press their own dear 
lambs nearer tlieir throbl)ing', loving hearts ; for they know 
how fi-ail the tie is that binds them to the pledges of their 
mntnal love. 

When parents die, tlie children of their neighbors cling 
more closely to tlieir parents, and are in deepest sympathy 
with those who are so sorely bereft ; for they realize that 
ere long it may be their bitter lot to drink of the sorrow- 
ful cup of orphanage. 

If a faithful pastor falls from his sacred relation into 
the silent tomb, every church feels admonished that he 
whom they obey and revere in the gospel may be called 
from their service to go up higher. 

When the Executive head of a great nation falls, all 
nations become mourners ; for they know that tlie ruler 
they look to, to carry them on in improvements and give 
them desirable perpetuity a,nd stability upon the earth, is 
also a man, and must ere long die, and may be called to 
his dread account in a moment least expected, and when 
they seemed most to need his guiding hand in the aifairs 
which so vitally concern their common and individual 
good. 

We, as a people, wept with weeping Britannia, when 
the good husband of their beloved queen passed from 



time and Windsor Castle to the shade and solitude of the 
silent tomb, I am sorrowingly mistaken in my estimate 
of Cliristian Europe, among wliose people I spent a few 
months of my life, if they all, and England especially, do 
not join in heart-felt grief with us in our funeral solemni- 
ties around the bier of him whom our whole nation mourns, 
and in respect to whom and the high office he filled so 
well, we devote the last hours of this sacred day in devout- 
est religious services. 

The lesson of this hour is — God seen above all national 
calamities. 

" In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the 
Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His 
train filled the temple." 

I. Rulers die. They must die, for they are mortal as 
other men are mortal. With you and I, beloved, they 
must- meet the messenger from the tombs, and there come 
to a halt in his cold embrace. 

" Princes, this clay must be your bed, 
In spite of all your towers ; 
The tall, the wise, the reverend head, 
Must lie as low as ours." 

" It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the 
judgment." We must each of us, rulers and people, say, 
" Thou, Lord, wilt bring me to the grave ; it is the house 
appointed for all living." He in whose hand our breath 
is hath said, " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou re- 
turn." This decree was pronounced by lips that cannot 
dissemble, at the gates of Eden ; it has never been altered, 
nor has it failed of verification in all the ages of our hu- 
man history, except in the instances of Enoch and Elijah. 

The fathers of our Federal Union, where are they? 
And the signers of our glorious Declaration of Independ- 
ence, do they live for ever? In various States of our 



great Republic they ended their illustrious mission, and 
died ; reverent friends buried them out of their sig-lit. 

The brave legions of our glorious Revolution, were 
they invincible to the conqueror of all human conquer- 
ors ? Did those of them who escaped the missiles of their 
enemies or survived the dying decreed against them by 
their brutal enemies in loathsome jails and prison ships, 
are they not all gone ? Except a corporal's guard — all, 
all, with their illustrious Washington at their head, have 
obeyed the divine roll-call and gone up on high, and only a 
few of their sepulchres are known to us of this day. Mount 
Vernon is yet sacred, and may be regarded as not only the 
entombing place of our first and greatest national chief, 
but as an enshrinement in hallowed memories of all who 
under him fought and bled in vindication of freedom's holy 
cause. 

Of the sixteen men who have hitherto filled the Ex- 
ecutive chair of our nation, three only survive. May 
Jehovah have ever in his safe keeping the life, the intellect, 
the heart and soul of him who now sits there, burdened 
with a nation's responsibilities, and almost overwhelmed in 
sympatliy with tlie people in this their great peculiar grief, 
as in a recent personal interview I have reason to know. 

The sixteenth and late Chief Magistrate of our Union 
has but just left us ; his call hence was so sudden, so 
unlooked for, so deeply to be deprecated, especially " in 
the deep damnation of his taking off," that we are scarcely 
as yet awake to the consciousness that we shall see his 
manly form towering among us no more, nor greet Ms 
kindly countenance, or feci the warm clasp of his ready 
hand ever again. Abraham Lincoln is dead — as we speak 
of death; his ever-laboring brain was pierced by a bullet, 
shot from a pistol by the hand of a drunken, debased assas- 
sin, April 14, 1865. Though the wound was mortal, he 
did not die, thank Heaven ! amid the unhallowed surround- 
iuQ-s where he received it. Kind arms bore him to a Chris- 



tian home, there to terminate his memorable and useful 
life. His breath and spirit went out of its clay tabernacle 
into the presence of his God and Judge from the house of 
a worthy family, belonging to the Lutheran Church, of 
which the Rev. Dr. Finckel is Pastor, in a room sacred to 
them, as from it, a few months since, went two cherub chil- 
dren to the bosom of the good Shepherd above. I thank 
God that he, whom we all revered, did not die in a place 
of questionable utility — a place I never was in, and where 
I entreat my hearers never to go. He died in a religious 
home, his friends and Pastor around him — the most sacred 
place this side of heaven. May it be ours to die amid such 
holy surroundings as ever cluster where Christian families 
reside. I know I speak for you all when I say — 

When I die, as die I must, 

And my worn body seeks repose, 

At home with those in Christ who trust, 

I'd yield to death, my last of foes. 

For there 'tis given the good to die, 
And there will guardian Angels come. 
Heralds of grand eternity, 
The ransomed sinner's joyful home. 

The knell of death has sounded ; it sounded first from 
the steeple of this Church ; the authorities of the nation 
have paid funeral honors to him they officially surrounded, 
prudently counselled, loved, and respected. The electric 
throb has sent the thrilling sensation to the extremes of our 
country, and swift winged ships are bearing it to all peo- 
ples who live beyond the seas. The lofty form that so re- 
cently bowed to welcome the humblest citizen to the na- 
tion's mansion has been shrouded and coffined, and com- 
mitted to careful hands, to be borne to their home on the 
prairies, where in less exalted position he was not less loved 
than here. 

Men of God, in presence of our newly inaugurated Chief 
Magistrate, have aiven Christian counsel to the living — 



comforting words to the widow and fatherless children ; all 
has been done that a grateful community could do, to 
respectfully consign the casket, from whence the jewel had 
departed, to the keeping of the earth from whence it came, 
and from whence it will rise again at the last day. What 
remains to us now is to so improve this solemn Providence 
as that we may be benefitted by its having occurred. 
Each of us will be held accountable to the bar of the Lord 
Jesus, our only Saviour and final Judge, for the use we 
make of the lesson so solemnly and impressively tauglit us 
in this terrible and unlooked-for catastrophe. 

Can we better do at this period in our life, and in the 
life of a lacerated nation, than to say, " Lord, so teach us 
to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto 
wisdom?" Does not divine wisdom teach us in our text, 
that "(ror? is seen amidst and above all national calami- 
ties ?'' 

Secondly. " Li the year that King Uzziah died I saw 
also the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and His 
train filled the temple." 

So let us, my brethren, now that our honored President 
has died, " see also the Lord on high," His train in grace- 
fulness and glory filling tlie temples of our land, and the 
liallowed place where we now worship. 

L We have need to see the Lord now on high, because 
we have been too grovelling and sensual in our thoughts 
and ways heretofore. When victory perched on our na- 
tional banners, when armed rebels fled before our vindi- 
cators and defenders, we did not as we should give God 
the glory that was due unto His holy name. We rejoiced, 
as well we might ; but instead of devout gratitude to him 
who enabled us to triumph, there was the sound of licen- 
tious revelry and noisy coarseness in our joy. Loosed for a 
season from the toils of routine life, many rushed madly 



to the intoxicating cup for stimulus to artificial excitement, 
and drowned all seasonable deliglit in mire, and a poison 
that not the dumb animals will swallow. We heard men 
say, when Richmond had fallen, they would get drunk 
then, if never again. 

Oh ! my beloved, such things ought not so to be among 
us — a people educated to rational freedom, nurtui-ed on 
the warm bosoms of Cliristian motliers, and having access 
to the word of God as a ritual with which to chant our 
ecstacies, and surrounded with open cliurches wherein to 
pay our vows and declare our thanksgivings. 

II. We sliould see the Lord above all national calam- 
ities, that so we miglit place our confidence for future suc- 
cess in a certain help in time of trouble. 

I have seen men high in civil and military positions re- 
sorting to exhibitions of frivolous if not immoral tenden- 
cies in this and other cities, when tlieir sons, brethren, and 
f' llow-citizens in arms were bareing their bosoms to the 
storms of death, and weltering in dying gore upon battle- 
fields, so near that we could hear the roar of cannon that 
was tearing them to pieces. I have trembled for my sons, 
and the sous of others, exposed on the ball-ploughed 
fields, and have, wondering, asked if my God, who is just, 
as well as merciful, would give success to a people so for- 
getful of the solemnities and even proprieties of a time so 
momentous as this was. Ambulances loaded with brave 
mangled men have rumbled through our streets past 
scenes of revelry and crime which we would suppose fiends 
only could delight in, amid associations so solemn and 
anxious as were transpiring near us. 

Tliat we may be chastened and have proper sympathy 
with those who peril all for our common good, we must see 
the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and to 
Him we all must look when death is at his carnival, and union 
and freedom are the prey he is voraciously seeking to devour. 



11 



III. We have depended too entirely on man when we 
have been in dread of onr enemies. In triumph we gave 
too mucli Q;lory to man, and not enougli to God. He as- 
sures us He will not give His glory to another. He is a 
jealous God. While I yield to no man in intelligent ad- 
miration of the unsullied integrity, uncorrupted honesty, 
lofty aims of philanthropy, and pure patriotism of our 
lamented President, I do most fearfully believe he was 
sometimes put between us and Him who alone could lielp 
us. Xot by his desire to be so exalted : he was too hum- 
ble and reliant on divine aid liimself ever to admit of such 
an emotion; l)ut we were prone to forget the hole of tlie 
pit from whence we were digged, and the rock from whence 
we were liewn, and said man had done what Omnipotence 
alone could do. 

I fear, my brethren, that when our heavenly Father saw 
that his goodness did not deter us from putting our trust 
in princes, nor from resting too entirely on an arm of 
flesh, he permitted a reckless wretch to assassinate our 
good President, and cowardly steal into the home of our 
chief of cabinet, and with bloody hands complement and 
com])anion that act, at least in extent, and even beyond 
in diabolical intentions of butchery, and so commit the 
deed that has disgraced the name of civilization. 

Cain is exceeded in this wickedness, and a worse than 
Cain's mark is set upon the villain's murderous brow. 
Go where these murderers may, these human fiends will 
find, even in savage wilds or African deserts, Satan also 
going with them, tormenting them before the time. No 
civilized people will give them asylum. They must go, 
driven by the fiery furies which their well-served but cruel 
master of the pit will send to hound them on their track, 
with no rest for the soles of tlieir feet in all the realms of 
existence, and as they cannot escape the just judgments of 
God we dare not speak of their terrible hereafter. In life 
they cannot escape that worse than hell into which tiger 



12 



passions have eugulfed tlieni ; and ever as consciousness 
lights up its glare in their gloom, each must exclaim, "My- 
self am hell, and hell itself were tolerable if it could but 
hide me from myself." Every night-wind they breathe 
will howlingly echo from their blistered throat and lips 
the terrific exclamation, true as it is wild and despairing, 
" My punishment is greater than I can bear," Except 
repentance ensue and marvellous mercy interpose, each 
must be as a tree set on fire by lightning, kindled and 
blasted, " his life one long war with self-sought foes." 

TV. Finally, God must be seen above all national ca- 
lamities, in order that we may have Him to go to in time 
of trouble. " Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the 
words of eternal life," was an apostolical exclamation in 
an hour of need and trial. 

Our late President Lincoln is dead. Andrew .Tohnson 
is now our President. " Tlie powers that be are ordained 
of God," and we are to respect, obey, and pray for all who 
bear rule over us. Christians are to be loyal to both God 
and man. 

" A foe to God was ne'er true friend to man." 

It is our first duty to look up to Him who is on the 
throne of the universe, for direction and lielp in discharg- 
ing our duties growing out of the death that has bereaved 
us, and the mercy that gives us one so able to succeed him. 

Are we afflicted ? then let us pray. Our Saviour, " being 
in an agony, prayed more earnestly." Prayer is the result, 
the pledge, the solace, the right use of affliction. The 
deeper the anguisli that rives our hearts, the greater the 
necessity for the rest and support we may find at the throne 
of the heavenly grace, " on wliich the Lord sits higli and 
lifted up." In the greatness of our personal and national 
grief, let us not, like our shamed ancestors in Eden, flee 
away and hide ourselves from God, but pray. Let us not. 



like Cain, try to dissipate our consciousness of need by 
building and being absorbed in worldly objects, but let us 
come before tlie Lord in penitent, beseeching prayer. Let 
us not, like Jonali, be fretful and angry because of the with- 
ering of our earthly gourds, but let us give ourselves unto 
tlio seeking prosperity of Him who is ever on the throne, 
and whose train of mercies fills the temples. 

" AVhen Ephraini saw his sickness, and Judah saw his 
wounds, then went Epliraim to the Assyrian and sent to 
King Joreb ; yet would not he heal them nor cure them of 
their wounds." Not so will we ; but in the sickness of our 
souls, and the wounds of our people, we will to Him, who 
alone can cure. Not like Saul shall we repair to carous- 
ing and dissipation, to drown our sorrows or wash away 
the remembrance of our guiltiness, but pray, " Lord, help ! 
for the godly man ceaseth, and the faithful fail from among 
the children of men." We must not, like Aliitopliel and 
Judas, suicidally plunge ourselves into hell for relief from 
the ills that whelm us here, but say to one anotlicr, "Come 
and let us return unto the Lord, for He hath torn, and He 
will heal us ; he hath smitten, and He will bind us up." 
Though the heavens are brass over our heads, and the 
earth iron under our feet, and we liear the roaring of His 
vindictive thunder and are terrified at tlie shaking of his 
avenging spear, whom we have most justly offended, and 
are afraid at His tokens, — yet with the patient patriarch 
we will say, " Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." 

Let each of us set a Christian example before the world, 
the best that we can do in our lot and station, resolving 
to contribute the life and heart of one patriot and Christian 
to the good of our wounded country, and a needy world. 

Doing this, we may confidently hope to finish our course 
with triumphant joy, and go into the possession of a glo- 
rious eternal hereafter. With the consecration of the 
noblest purposes in our hearts, and full trust in the merits 
of Jesus Christ underlying all our prospects, if we must 



needs be occasionally cast down, we shall not be de- 
stroyed. In our personal and national trials we shall 
see the Lord on tlie throne, high and lifted up, and His 
train filling the temple, and we singing responsive to the 
heavenly host. 

" I seem forsaken and alone, 
I hear the lions roar, 
And every door is shut but one, 
And that is mercy's door. 

" There till the dear Deliverer come 
I'll wait with humble prayer, 
And when he calls his exiles home 
The Lord shall find me there." 

Let us Pray. 

Our Father and God, we now pray unto Thee in words 
Thou didst hear from the lips of our beloved Washington, 
saying : 

" May thy Providence, which has so long appeared to be 
on our behalf so manifestly, interpose and help us through 
all this struggle, and direct us to the measures to be used 
and pursued to bring about the happy event all lovers of 
Thee and of mankind so ardently desire ! " " Mayest Thou 
who art powerful to save, in whose hands is the fate of 
nations, look down with an eye of tender pity and com- 
passion upon the whole of these United States, continue 
to smile upon our councils and arms, and crown them with 
success, whilst employed in the cause of virtue and man- 
kind." 

We humbly beseech Thee, most merciful Lord God ! 
that this distressed country, and its capital, and every part 
of this wide-extended continent, through Thy divine favor, 
may be restored to more than their former lustre and once 
happy state. May we have peace, liberty, and safety, se- 
cured upon a solid, impartial, and permanent foundation. 

May freedom be given to all the oppressed, health be 



restored to all sick and wounded, comfort ministered to 
all who mourn ! The fatherless and the widow do Thou 
take into the covenant-keeping of Thy everlasting arms. 
May we all, with hearty repentance and sincere faith, turn 
away from our sins unto Thee, Lord ! 

We do most humbly and heartily beseech Thee to bless 
Thy servant the President of these United States, his 
cabinet and counsellors, members of our Senate and 
Congress, with all others in authority ; endow them 
plenteously with Thy grace and wisdom, that so being 
replenished, they may do good while they live, and come 
at last to the enjoyment of eternal felicity in presence of 
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ; to whom be 
glory and dominion world without end. Amen. 



